I Grew Up Thinking There Was One

Awareness Of Time As Flying Has Some Advantages; It Precludes Boredom, For One Thing. It Matters Little That Younger People Find Older People Boring Or Slow. Older People Have A Right To Resist Being Rushed, To Stand And Stare At The Fragile World That Has Become So Unspeakably Dear To Them. For The Lucky Ones, Who Will Not Have To Leave While They Are Still In Love With Life, There Will Come A Later Time When That Passion Too Will Fade, But While One Is Still Possessed By That Great Tenderness, It Must Be Yielded To.

Every Human Body Has Its Optimum Weight And Contour, Which Only Health And Efficiency Can Establish. Whenever We Treat Women's Bodies As Aesthetic Objects Without Function We Deform Them.

The Older Woman's Love Is Not Love Of Herself, Nor Of Herself Mirrored In A Lover's Eyes, Nor Is It Corrupted By Need. It Is A Feeling Of Tenderness So Still And Deep And Warm That It Gilds Every Grass Blade And Blesses Every Fly. It Includes The Ones Who Have A Claim On It, And A Great Deal Else Besides. I Wouldn't Have Missed It For The World.

The Struggle Which Is Not Joyous Is The Wrong Struggle. The Joy Of The Struggle Is Not Hedonism And Hilarity, But The Sense Of Purpose, Achievement And Dignity.

The Fear Of Freedom Is Strong In Us. We Call It Chaos Or Anarchy, And The Words Are Threatening. We Live In A True Chaos Of Contradicting Authorities, An Age Of Conformism Without Community, Of Proximity Without Communication. We Could Only Fear Chaos If We Imagined That It Was Unknown To Us, But In Fact We Know It Very Well.